2014.11.04 : View this Review Online | View Recent NDPR Reviews
Andrew Lister, Public Reason and Political Community, Bloomsbury, 2013, 235pp., $120.00 (hbk), ISBN 9781780936574.
Reviewed by Kevin Vallier, Bowling Green State University
Political liberalism is distinguished from other forms of liberal political theory by its acceptability requirement. The requirement holds that some feature of political decisions -- typically coercive laws and policies -- must be acceptable to all reasonable, or suitably qualified, points of view. Political decisions, then, are only morally permissible when the acceptability requirement is met. Political liberals say that a law or decision is publicly justified when it satisfies the requirement. I have sometimes heard it said that political liberalism is a derelict research program, that it focuses primarily on Rawls exegesis and employs vague and unhelpful ideas as its key concepts. This is untrue. And one bit of evidence is Andrew. . .